There's bad communication and lots of resentment on BOTH sides of the phone line.

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Twelve years ago, while working at my very first real job right out of college, I created a website called The Chronicles of George in order to highlight the grammatically twisted help desk tickets produced by a coworker. I was a much younger and angrier person then, and the idea of putting up a website to ridicule someone else seemed hilarious and appropriate. Besides, it's not like anyone was really going to see the thing, right? It would be a dumb little lark I could share with my friends. That would be that.

More the fool, I. The CoG was noticed by a few USENET groups and within a month, I'd blown through traffic caps on two separate Web hosts. Local morning radio shows started calling. The site ended up as a Screen Savers "Site of the Nite" and a Yahoo Pick, and at its peak of popularity it did about 90,000 pageviews a day. Clearly, George's mangled help desk tickets and his characteristic verb tense—"havening," "receivening," and so on—had struck a collective Internet nerve.

However, the site is more than simply a bunch of screenshots and snarky commentary: there's a lesson to be learned in many of the malformed help desk tickets about the state of technical support. Problems run far deeper than just bad spelling.

A systemic problem

A few weeks ago, Ars asked what you think is wrong with technical support, and boy, did the responses ever roll in. The complaints came from both the folks who call into help desks and from the folks who work on those help desks. Responses were legion, though everyone seemed to be able to agree on an overarching point: whether you're calling for help or providing help, technical support is an awful thing that no one likes. There are shining points of light here and there where an individual has a fabulous, helpful support call. But as a whole, the comments were overwhelmingly negative about both the experience of receiving support and the experience of dispensing it. Whose fault is it, really?

Getting help from jerks

The complaint most often repeated by posters on the customer side involved the near-universal use of "scripts" by help desk techs. These guide the technician down a carefully prepared list of common frontline troubleshooting steps, but they also often enrage customers by forcing them to comply with instructions that often have little or nothing to do with the problem they've called in. ("No, rebooting my computer is not going to fix the toner sense error message flashing on my printer's screen!").

Enlarge/ Customers are often frustrated with being forced to plod through a support script.

Another common complaint was a perceived lack of knowledge and respect on the part of the technicians. There is a hard-to-shake pervasive cultural image of the bored and unskilled phone support person berating a customer for failing to follow ill-described directions. So posters vented no small amount of resentment about often knowing far more than the technician, but still being forced to comply with seemingly capricious basic troubleshooting before being escalated to a more skilled engineering resource (you know, the type with the ability to actually solve problems).

Enlarge/ Unskilled help desk technicians can make bad problems into absolutely nonsensical ones.

This leads to a third complaint: there is generally no way for a skilled customer who has already accomplished a lot of basic troubleshooting to skip the first-tier support people—the "help desk firewall," as one poster cleverly put it. You simply can't directly access the people with the knowledge to address more complex issues. The XKCD Shibboleet strip was mentioned more than once by way of example; such a key phrase would go far to eliminate a tremendous amount of angst-filled wasted time as the seemingly moronic first-level helpdesker plods through seemingly useless troubleshooting steps.

Enlarge/ Skilled users or those who know what they need usually have no way of bypassing the "help desk firewall."

Giving help to idiots

The feelings from the other side of the phone were just as vitriolic. An oft-repeated sentiment was that "all customers are liars." It's a cynical point of view, but much like Dr. Gregory House says, it seems to be true more often than not. The help desk workers overwhelmingly reported torrential abuse at the hands of customers who do anything and everything they possibly can to avoid giving correct information, and who seem to take a perverse pride in their ignorance about how computers function. The goal on the customers' parts is often to get their problem resolved as quickly as possible, without respect for process and sometimes without admitting they've missed basic steps.

Enlarge/ Some customers aren't above fabrication to get what they want.

Beyond that, help desk workers are frustrated to face sometimes frantic and enraged requests for assistance with basic tasks, which tie up time better spent on solving more complex problems. Passwords that were remembered on a Friday are forgotten like clockwork every Monday morning. A laptop won't boot because it isn't fully seated on a docking station. Excel is "broken" because scroll lock is on. When chided for not having even rudimentary computer knowledge in spite of a computer being an integral part of their job, annoyed users often fire back with the tired old saw: "You don't have to know how to fix a car in order to drive one." This is true, but although you don't need to be able to fix the car, you should at least know what the steering wheel does.

The biggest problem reported, though, was that customers simply can't be bothered to provide enough information to correctly diagnose a problem. Techs complained that getting an accurate picture of what might be wrong with a customer's machine is sometimes impossible; a call often starts with a customer saying "My computer's broke," and then responding to requests for more information with an angry "I don't know what's wrong—that's your job! Fix it!" It's hard not to feel frustration when confronted with enraged entitlement.

Enlarge/ The help you receive is only as good as the information you can provide.

Couples counseling

Much like an arguing couple who has been fighting for years, it's difficult for either side to see and acknowledge that the other's points have merit. Stepping back from the heat and looking at the laundry list of complaints, though, it's clear most of the things being complained about are symptoms, not actual causes. There are two things that both sides lack: empathy and trust.

This is easy to see—I should be a doctor! But much like a licensed professional counselor might tell a pair of folks they need to listen to and trust each other more, it's difficult to actually do. Merely being more empathetic and trusting won't automatically fix everything. Unfortunately, there are significant outside factors dogging technical support as well.

Still, it's hard to ignore the basics. The lack of trust by itself is a high hurdle to overcome, and it results in most customers approaching a tech support call with the attitude of "What am I going to have to tell this unhelpful jerk in order to get my problem fixed?" Most corresponding techs answer the phone thinking something like, "What is this idiot liar going to try to pull over on me now?"

Worse, outsourcing—and more specifically off-shoring—is far and away the most damaging thing to happen to the customer/support relationship since its inception. Sadly, even the sagest of technical advice can be rendered useless when filtered through a strong enough accent. I'm as guilty of this as anyone else—when I call a support line and fight my way through the IVR menu only to eventually get a person who is clearly from Mumbai on the line, I feel an immediate sense of despair. My perception, based on a decade of terrible support experiences, is that I need to do everything I can to get past this person and get through to someone who actually can communicate effectively and fix my problem. Like most assumptions, this thinking will make an... well, you know the phrase.

Beyond trust, empathy is another killer. Customers rarely take into account that the seemingly bored and annoyed technician they're dealing with is paid based on the number of calls per hour he closes. Or that the ridiculous script is mandated by his company and deviation from it can skew his metrics, possibly even cost him his job. Conversely, it's difficult for pressured techs to realize the seemingly endless stream of "idiots" they have to assist are real people. The problem they're calling in with, trivial as it might seem to the tech, is of huge importance to the customer.

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Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and gaming/culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and human space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com

159 Reader Comments

When I call in for technical support, I still follow the script to the letter without complaining. Even though I know all the steps, sometimes I skip some since I don't think they're relevant when it turns out they are!

The steps suggested to improve the problem will never work on a large scale because customers keep choosing the lowest cost product to purchase without regard to the quality of support. Shipping support to Hyderabad or Mumbai or Puerto Rico or <Insert place name here> is cheaper which means I can lower my system costs and thus win business. If this ever stops being true then support will come back onshore until then I'll keep pretending to sympathise with customers about support while knowing that they'll turf me out the instant someone offers them a 1% cheaper unit cost.

When it's possible, I try to strike up a little small talk with the tech support person. When I can do that, it's amazing the amount of cooperation that I get when solving a problem. I usually tell them that I understand that their scripts force the simple troubleshooting steps and ask how we can get these over quickly as to get into the meat of the problem.

Sometimes, I have simply forgotten a small but critical step and the simple troubleshooting steps reveal that. Like I may have forgot the firewall settings need to be checked. Simply thank the rep for a pleasant experience and move on.

Other times, when we've exhausted the simple steps and the not so simple ones, the representative feels better about escalation to a higher level with the added benefit that they tell the higher level what kind of competence I have with a computer. Usually, at that point, the tech goes into full abbreviation mode when speaking, and we can cover multiple steps in just seconds.

So, if possible, try and strike up a small amount of conversation just to let the person know that you are a reasonable human and won't be giving them additional stress that they already have dealt with all day.

Having done my time on a help desk, I quickly learned the worse caller was the one who was "very knowledgeable" (note the quote marks) and was calling to have us implement their preconceived "solution" without explaining what the core problem was. More often that not, the "solution" didn't work, and they'd call back several more times to call things before finally asking for help.

Now, having moved on to bigger and better things, I've recently found myself doing exactly the same. :S

I'd actually love to send this off to the help desk at my firm so they can absorb some of the info within...however, I was criticized for referring to the IT group (of which I'm a part of) as "code monkeys" and "tech monkeys", and the lead image on this article would probably be preceived as taunting

When it's possible, I try to strike up a little small talk with the tech support person. When I can do that, it's amazing the amount of cooperation that I get when solving a problem. I usually tell them that I understand that their scripts force the simple troubleshooting steps and ask how we can get these over quickly as to get into the meat of the problem.

Sometimes, I have simply forgotten a small but critical step and the simple troubleshooting steps reveal that. Like I may have forgot the firewall settings need to be checked. Simply thank the rep for a pleasant experience and move on.

Other times, when we've exhausted the simple steps and the not so simple ones, the representative feels better about escalation to a higher level with the added benefit that they tell the higher level what kind of competence I have with a computer. Usually, at that point, the tech goes into full abbreviation mode when speaking, and we can cover multiple steps in just seconds.

So, if possible, try and strike up a small amount of conversation just to let the person know that you are a reasonable human and won't be giving them additional stress that they already have dealt with all day.

That just seems like a lot of work in order for someone to take you seriously

This article is a fairly accurate portrayal of my 5 or so years of experience in IT support. Thankfully I never had to deal too much with the callcenter/telephonic aspect, the people I supported were usually a short walk away from my office and I could usually just chat to them face to face. I think at least part of the resentment I've seen between support and users is due to the inability of many users to really explain their problems in terms the support people can understand. That ends up frustrating both sides.

Something I had to understand fairly early on is that while technical expertise is a big part of support - being able to deal with people is at least as important and often more important. When interviewing for new positions I usually tended to prefer people with a better bedside manner over ones with higher technical skills - at least at the more customer-facing jobs.

But honestly I'm so glad I graduated to a point where I'm no longer on the front line so to speak - it can be incredibly draining to deal with people's needs all day. There never seems to be any end to the demands and even a smile or a "Thank You" is often the exception rather than the rule.

In college, I worked technical support for Creative Labs when installing your own "Multi-Media Upgrade Kit" (sound card and CD-ROM) was a brand new concept. It was an interesting experience. It was a new facility and for the first 6 months, most of the new hires were pretty bright, mostly engineering students like myself. We had an average call time of less than 10 minutes and no queue time. Our goal was to provide 8 to midnight availability and to provide great service and crush Media Vision and their limited technical support availability.

As the MMUK's really hit the market, the call volume increased rapidly. After about a year they started hiring just any idiot off the street and making scripts. Average call times crossed 30 minutes, some people had call averages of an hour, I would get customers who had waited through hour long queues 3 times not had their problems fixed and I could fix them in 2 minutes but they wouldn't let me off the phone because they were so desperate to make sure it was really, REALLY working because they were terrified at the possibility of waiting through the queue and getting someone who wasn't smart. I had to be careful not to say things like "this is pretty straightforward and won't take long to fix" because I would often get a response of "well, I just spent an hour and a half with XXXXXXX before we got disconnected, so I'm pretty sure it's not straightforward." It was pretty soul crushing to know how badly we were abusing our customers.

About 2 years in, I actually had my manager come out of a meeting and tell me my call time was too short. I had been used by someone who was reviewing metrics as an example of someone who needed to be watched because he was probably hanging up on customers because I had a 7 minute call average...

Rackspace phone support has a direct line to the helpdesk, and answers very quickly. Don't know who else does this.

I can provide some info on this, having been a system admin and eventually a senior engineer for RS.

The company really does consider quality, effective support to be the secret sauce. While they do collect metrics, managers in support are encouraged to have their techs bring positive and negative tickets to their one on one reviews, rather than relying on metrics to show tech performance. Metrics are a piece of the picture, but more on an aggregate level (do we have enough staffing, etc).

RS techs take great pride in a good support experience, it's a huge part of the internal culture.

The steps suggested to improve the problem will never work on a large scale because customers keep choosing the lowest cost product to purchase without regard to the quality of support.

Maybe "usually", but not "always". Given two equally-suited technical options, I'll purchase a Lenovo over an HP because I know that when I call Lenovo I'll get someone in Atlanta that will absolutely NOT force me through a BS script when I say, "this keyboard is mechanically defective". Their support reps are empowered to make real decisions, whenever they think it's necessary, and they're quick to do it. I want that box they get to your door the next morning for depot service, not a four hour argument with someone in Mumbai. That's where HP craps the bed.

I have the same experience with WOW's internet service. When I call with a problem in the middle of the night, I get the guy with the linux poster in his cube, and WE fix the problem. Strangely, they're no more expensive than their competitors.

And so nobody thinks I'm just griping about foreign service, I've had excellent support interactions with a Citi (credit card) rep. I asked the man where he was at, and I got a genuinely informative little run down on the area he lives in, universities in the area, a little history, etc. This was after he answered my question satisfactorily, of course. I gladly went out of my way to report that he was one of the best support reps I'd ever spoken with.

Good things can happen, but they start by making good decisions and being respectful of the person on the other end of the line. /rant

Tech support folks should be a little more personable... that would make all the difference in the world. I get that you have a script to follow, but honestly that's something a good automated phone system could do without human intervention. "If you know the computer's IP address, press 1. If not, press 2 for directions on how to get it."

The reason for having live people on the end of the phone is exactly for that reason - because you need flexibility and experience to troubleshoot. The people who just run directly through script after script, word for word, and ignore what you're trying to say to them, are a waste of my time and theirs. I'll bite my tongue and deal with them because a) I need my stuff fixed and b) they're just doing their job, but it could save everyone a lot of time and money to automate the scripts and only have live people with the ability to be flexible waiting for the escalated issues.

Okay, I haven't read the article, just the first couple paragraphs. But I have to ask; YOU created the CoG? Man, I dunno if you are some kind of deity or what, but this need to be turned into a training manual or something.

The few times I've had to call tech support for anything, from anyone, if I know the right words, and speak very matter-of-factly ("I need to provision my new modem"), I can get my stuff done relatively quickly, compared to some people whose calls I have listened in on (they insisted on calling themselves).....

I can tolerate them not being able to understand what RAM is, or a Hard Disk. Most of them really just want to play Farmville dammit.

But when you cannot take the input I give you, i.e. the solution to your problem, and instead you just go " Nope " every time I ask you to follow directions. I'm going to go fucking postal on you. If you're asking for my help, take it, I assure you, your best interests ARE my best interests. I want, desire, enjoy and love fixing your problems. I want to make your day better, I truly do, because a happy you is a happy me.

If you can't meet me even 5% of the way, then you're never going to see satisfaction from the job that gets done for you. Ever.

I'll give you an example: "Click here, ok, and then click there, ok and now hit Apply"

When your answer is "There is no Apply" I'm going to rage, because I have the exact thing in front of me you do, and I can assure you beyond the shadow of a doubt there is an Apply there, and you then confirm it 15 minutes later after they've already peeled my ass off the ceiling from frustration, by going "Oh there's Apply, right where you said, wow how did I miss that".

On occasion I do get a person who is just reasonable to talk with, has problems and understands I can fix them. They communicate, even if they don't know the words, they say "blue screen with text" I know they had a BSOD more than likely. You can even go so far as to say "Mouse no work, battery new, ugh" and at least I have some understanding of where you stand. But you're correct "It broke, no work" is never going to resolve anything unless your solution is to blast it with a .45 and call it a day.

Believe me, I used to have to explain chemical oxidation of metals to machine shop owners. Its like night and day trying to explain chemistry and how that all functions. I'm 10000% capable of telling you how to fix your browser, all you have to do is listen, and so many people just plain fail in that category.

It can get better, it will get better, but its going to take the front line with the ability to push back for changes. Overseas people will never stand up in that fashion. Thats why TLM people like them.

At my job, a 1st level support will most often receive calls in Swedish and then write tickets in English. Sometimes they translate received mails with Google Translate. This can cause some hilarious support case descriptions, like "User is trying to save the court on a party" or "You are required to do the needful".

There's also an error message in the system that says "revisioning" instead of "revising".

My biggest disappointment when I found the CoG was that it was not updated anymore. I laughed bitterly at many of the tickets.

I worked at a large healthcare system, it was not practical to walk to every computer that was broken at some hospitals, but at the smaller hospitals that had dedicated deployment staff their users were considerably happier since they had face-to-face contact with the deployment staff. We had 6 phone helpdesk people, 1 worse than George (60% of tickets = system not working), 1 almost as bad, and 4 decent ones. At the larger hospitals that was an issue since it required a lot of rework, at smaller hospitals the techs knew the users so they would pop in and say 'hi whats wrong' and fix it quickly.

When I was a cable installer, I'd occasionally get notes about an irate customer or the customer would bash the call center CSSR who didn't troubleshoot the problem correctly. I would quickly point out that the folks on the other end of the line had a very limited view of the problem, usually just a billing screen and maybe a work order history to go by (they've since got better tools, but there's only so much they can see). The reason I was able to resolve the issue was due to the fact that I got to see everything, from the 30 year old service drop to the malware that the customer installed and the useless "surge suppressor" that the cable modem was connected through.

I've listened in on calls in the past. 90% of the calls are about billing questions and "suspicious" PPV orders. One call I remember was the wife calling in to complain the parental code wasn't locking out PPV like it should. We looked at the call history and found that her husband was calling in and getting the code cleared. After a good laugh, the CSSR told me that happens all the time.

In the company I work for we take an approach that our clients very much enjoy. After a brief description of the problem, we instruct the client to download and execute our remote desktop support application (LogMeIn Rescue). Instead of frustrating the technician and the client, we're able to keep verbal communication to a minimum and fix the problem in the fastest way possible. This bypasses most of the concerns raised in the article entirely as technical verbal communication by itself is generally unreliable and prone to misunderstandings.

I find that once the client sees that we are working together to fix the problem and progress is being made, any anger or frustration quickly dissipates. In some cases where the client is hard to work with and the situation is appropiate, we suggest that they take a coffee break while we fix the problem. We follow up with a call later.

I just want to say thanks for this article. Having worked at a number of help desks and technical call centers in my younger days, this article is pretty much spot on.

In training for my first big tech support job for a major computer manufacturer, I sat with a top tech (according to metrics) who showed me "the secret" -- look for any excuse to get the caller off the phone as quickly as possible in order to meet the metrics; whether that meant transferring to another dept or convincing the caller to run some BS time-consuming step and call back in if that didn't work.

I was disgusted by this behavior and refused to play along, resulting in one initial layoff and constant consultations with my manager throughout my time served.

I was never the best at call times and the only thing that saved my ass time and time again was FCR (First Call Resolution) and frequent letters to my management from callers that expressed gratitude in my ability to help them. I also had to often point out the quality (and length) of my notes in the help tickets, which I was ace at, compared to the vast majority of my peers.

My first time through, I was burned out severely and vowed never to pursue that line of work again. My second time through, I was lucky enough to work for a company that actually gave a damn about their employees (and customers) and had good management that would fight for their team as long as the techs could show the quality and competence necessary for the job. Metrics were still involved but took a backseat to the customer satisfaction element.

The difference between the two companies were night and day.

This article should be essential reading for anyone in charge of a help desk or tech support call center.

And this is why chat and desktop sharing are so useful. Chat instantly takes the accent out of the equation, and at least where I work (large Fortune 150 tech company), the techs share their real names, so none of this "Hi, my name is Dave" crap.

Chat is also more permissive. Most people (well, below the age of 50 or so) expect chat to be less grammatical, and make enough typos themselves that they don't mind a few from the tech. Desktop sharing also makes it easier for the tech to see what's going on. It's no coincidence that chat has astronomical satisfaction rates compared to phone support. It helps that chat is done well; short wait times, techs who write quite well, and access to trained staff.

Of course, if your machine can't get on the network, chat doesn't help, but for those (increasingly rarer) cases, we have on-site techs. I think the building where I work has three or four techs, no more, and they are usually very good at replacing the dead machines.

I have seen though, that some people just DO NOT want to use chat. They prefer to call up, and honestly, I feel bad for the tech. A person who sits a few cubes away is perpetually on the phone with IT, and this person is VERY rude. He/she speaks to the techs as if they really are monkeys; I only hear one side of the conversation, but it can't possibly be that all the techs are that bad; on occasion when I speak to them, they are pretty good, and our internal IT satisfaction metrics are quite high. Her/his response to a tech's reasonable question is to raise his/her voice and speak very slowly...

I agree with the author's call for empathy, but I just think that some people are just not good at communicating. Add to that a sense of entitlement (on either, or both, sides), and you have a recipe for frustration. And of course, let's not even talk about people who want to feel that they have some power over SOMETHING in their lives, even if it is the poor IT support guy or the hapless customer.

The one thing I agree with a former boss of mine about is the fact that first level support should first and foremost be personable. Friendly, able to help someone calling in explain what they're seeing. They don't have to be very technical. In fact that's one of the biggest problems. A person who is knowledgeable enough technically to be a great "help desk" person isn't going to want to do it for long. So don't focus on the technical. Focus on the process of information collecting.

The problem I've always had with that XKCD comic is that even though someone might be able to solve your problem in 30 seconds doesn't mean they can do it when YOU want it.

Your statement that metrics don't matter is a bit simplistic. The right metrics can make all the difference, but using canned metrics from other companies or the old standby of "industry standards" can harm your service desk output.

Here's one I mistake I see being made all the time: First Call Resolution rate should be close to 100%. It's something new managers or stakeholders make. In truth, FCR should be about 60%. Too high leads to rapid tech burn out; too low means customer satisfaction drops. But the right number depends on a lot of factors: how complicated are the calls you expect to get, how many phone staffers you plan to have, how quickly can your level 2 or 3 support get involved, and how accessible are your level 2 or 3 support to your phone staffers.

In more complicated environments, you probably want an FCR around 45-50% if all else remains even. If your level 2 or 3 support collaborate with level 1 instead of just being handed escalated tickets, your FCR should be around 80%.

Other old hat metrics like avg talk time, calls taken, or abandoned calls all need to be analyzed as how they pertain to your specific environment. So I wouldn't say metrics don't matter. You can use metrics to enforce the behavior you want from your phone support staff, but each one of those metrics is a variable in the grand equation of customer satisfaction.

No news is not always good news...sometimes no news means someone else is doing support on the side. Shadow IT is an interesting topic as it related to support staff. Most organizations try to stamp it out, but the truly wide managers see it as a potential solution to solving problems quickly. Organizations embracing shadow IT for some common issues quickly empowers end users to find their own solution and can bring down the costs of support while driving up the value of your phone staff.

Love the article! While working in HelpDesk, it usually had you viewed as one of two things, Satan or Santa Claus. If it is broken and takes more than five minutes, you were Satan. If you could fix it fast and make the person's day better, you were Santa Claus. I rarely saw anything in the middle.... Glad I don't have to do that anymore. It really will drain the life from you like being a rock squeezed past a diamond, and just reduced to dust repeatedly.

I had to call Dell tech support the other day due to a failed hard drive on my girlfriend's less than a year old laptop, which was still under warranty. I was fully expecting to run through a bunch of BS steps to resolve the problem, but instead I was able to breeze right past and get done with minimal BS from tech support.

The secret: The error code and validation # from the built in Dell diagnostic utility on the PC. Basically I gave the tech the error code and he knew right away that the HD was toast. A FedEx box was sent out the next day!

When it's possible, I try to strike up a little small talk with the tech support person. When I can do that, it's amazing the amount of cooperation that I get when solving a problem. I usually tell them that I understand that their scripts force the simple troubleshooting steps and ask how we can get these over quickly as to get into the meat of the problem.

Sometimes, I have simply forgotten a small but critical step and the simple troubleshooting steps reveal that. Like I may have forgot the firewall settings need to be checked. Simply thank the rep for a pleasant experience and move on.

Other times, when we've exhausted the simple steps and the not so simple ones, the representative feels better about escalation to a higher level with the added benefit that they tell the higher level what kind of competence I have with a computer. Usually, at that point, the tech goes into full abbreviation mode when speaking, and we can cover multiple steps in just seconds.

So, if possible, try and strike up a small amount of conversation just to let the person know that you are a reasonable human and won't be giving them additional stress that they already have dealt with all day.

That just seems like a lot of work in order for someone to take you seriously

Then you'd probably be very surprised at how helpful the CSR's/Techs can become when they feel like they're being treated as a person and not a tool. I try to do the same as FlynnARS whenever I need to deal with the 'front line' folks... not because it gets me a little extra, but because I've been there and it's nice to help someone that is patient and takes even a tiny amount of interest in you.